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ST. LOUIS - An unruly mob lured emergency personnel to a southwestern Illinois housing complex with reports of a blaze, a shooting and other crimes, then repeatedly attacked them with fireworks and bottle rockets, police said Tuesday.

No one was injured in the onslaughts against firefighters and police Sunday night and early Monday near a sprawling, three-block housing complex in Alton, Ill., a 30,000-resident Mississippi River city northeast of St. Louis.

The attackers apparently intended the assaults as amusement for a crowd of several hundred adults and children who had gathered at the Oakwood Housing Complex to watch, at times requiring police to fire volleys of pepper balls to control the throng, Police Chief David Hayes said.

"It defies human logic," Hayes said, calling the outbursts "despicable" and uncivilized. "It's the work of hoodlums that would create a ruse like that to lure in emergency services people who are paid to protect them and be at their service, then use those resources as target practice and fun" with firecrackers, bottle rockets and other fireworks all outlawed in Illinois.

Hayes said there have been no arrests or charges yet in the attacks, and police hope footage from the complex's surveillance cameras pinpoints the attackers.

Hayes said the firefighters were first attacked when they responded to reports of a Dumpster fire near the complex about 10:20 p.m. Sunday.

"Our firefighters got in there and started doing their thing, and out come the fireworks" including bottle rockets and Roman candles, said Mark Harris, a deputy fire chief.

After that, Hayes said, "it apparently became comical for those (attackers) involved."

Separately, police officers were showered with bottle rockets fired from behind buildings at the complex when they investigated a call falsely claiming someone had been shot and reports of fireworks being set off.

Police officers and firefighters were attacked again when they returned to the neighborhood to douse a blazing box early Monday.Hayes said officers tried to control the assailants by using guns firing pepper balls. He said the assaults had turned his stomach and forced so many police to address the onslaught that it left other portions of the city unprotected.

Harris said the organized nature of the attacks — and its apparent entertainment value — was a particular concern, noting that children were in the crowd and witnessed the attacks."Helluva example for the kids," he said, adding, "the guys don't get paid near enough to be shot at."

The complex's 800 or 900 residents will be notified in writing this week that suspects found to have taken part in the attacks will be evicted, Hayes said.

well I think our own government during 911 misused emergency personel in this way.

It is reported that the Bush Administrarion and New York mayor Giuliani were complicit as well as hundreds of others in the bringing down of the world trade towers and it's sister buildings like building number seven that experts say was really imploded.

Coincidently NORAD was conducting terrorists flight training operations just before the towers were suposedly attacked and FEMA and other emergency agencys were dispatched to assist in those operations. But we believe FEMA and other agencys were there not knowing full well that something real was about to happen .

I have no problem that they were there because just after the alleged 911 attacks, we were grateful to have them. How come we had little to no emergency personel there for Katrina ?

Any how, our own Government has abused it's own emergency services and have failed to deploy them time after time !!!

While I don't condone the actions of those in St.Louis, It is as Bob says, an obvious sign of some sort of disatisfaction and it could be related to the actions or in actions of their local city council or Government not responding to some other crisis or time of need for it's citizens.

This is unfortunatley how today, we see this sort of thing happening because citizens are shut out of the want and right to confront our Government in a more respectable manner .

It is reported that the Bush Administrarion and New York mayor Giuliani were complicit as well as hundreds of others in the bringing down of the world trade towers

But not by anyone that actually pays attention.

Seriously - do you believe that if the federal government could carry off the biggest subterfuge in the history of the world, right in the backyard of the American media (a media that wanted nothing more than to impeach Bush!), they wouldn't have also planted a WMD somewhere in Iraq?

and it's sister buildings like building number seven that experts say was really imploded.

Not sure what "experts" you're referring to, but that theory is based on a lot of very badly-interpreted evidence, and has been pretty roundly debunked.

NORAD was not responsible, in the days before 9/11, with tracking flights in the US. It focused exclusively on foreign threats. In the years before 9/11, it had tracked exactly *one* domestic flight - that of Payne Stewart, when an explosive decompression killed the golfer, the pilots, and everyone on his learjet.

I have no problem that they were there because just after the alleged 911 attacks, we were grateful to have them. How come we had little to no emergency personel there for Katrina ?

Partly because the feds screwed up. Partly because STATE government screwed up; in those pre-Katrina days, the states were supposed to take the lead on emergencies and bring in FEMA later - and Louisiana and New Orleans were both led by incompetents. And partly because the government rather sensibly wanted to keep emergency personnel and supplies out of the range of the worst of the hurricane, so they wouldn't become casualties and parts of the problem.

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Conscience is the light of the Soul that burns within the chambers of our psychological heart. It is as real as life is. It raises the voice in protest whenever anything is thought of or done contrary to the righteousness. Conscience is a form of truth that has been transferred through our genetic stock in the form of the knowledge of our own acts and feelings as right or wrong. A virtuous and courageous person can alone use the instrument of conscience. He or she can alone hear the inner voice of the soul clearly. In a wicked person this faculty is absent. The sensitive nature of his / her conscience has been destroyed by sin or corruption. Hence he or she is unable to discriminate right from wrong. Those who are leading organizations, business enterprises, institutions and governments should develop this virtue of the ability to use their own conscience. This wisdom of using the clean conscience will enable them to enjoy the freedom.
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